Posts
The Selfishness of “Pick-and-Mix” Feminism
By Phyllis Chesler / December 31, 2008
In a recent article in the Times of London, "The New Feminists: Lipstick and Pageants," the free feminist fighting forces of Great Britain and the United States declared victory. They announced that they will be wearing high-heels and lipstick, joining beauty contests, perhaps also picketing beauty contests, becoming and perhaps organizing models into unions, having babies, (in lipstick and high heels if they so choose), and also holding down demanding jobs in formerly all-male professions.
Theirs is a new, "pick-and-mix feminism," which allows women to be both "feminist and glamorous," and to avoid all guilt about their "obsession with youth, thinness, and celebrity."
I wish the younger sisters well. Like them, I was once also boy-crazy, girl-crazy, crazy for torch songs, jazz, and opera even more; like them, I wore lipstick, (still do), as did so many others of my feminist generation. I wore high heels when I was younger and, like Germaine Greer, (who is being told to "stand down" or "step aside" in the article), I’ve also been known to strike the occasionally glamorous pose.
But such details are minor. How we look when we free the prisoner or feed the hungry does not matter that much.
In my time, it might have been slightly revolutionary to refuse to wear bras, girdles, lipstick, and high heels–but today, does wearing (or not wearing) lipstick a feminist make? What do such narcissistic, personal body-concerns have to do with the fate of women or of the world today?
I wonder whether these no-doubt well-meaning younger sisters actually live in the same world I do.
Indulge me for a moment.
On December 18, 2008, in Kirkuk, gunmen broke into the home of Kurdish women’s rights activist Nahla Hussain. They shot her and then they beheaded her.
For a long time, Iraqi women have been beheaded for refusing to veil themselves. This is true in 2008 and it was true under Saddam Hussein.
Since Khomeini came to power, Iranian women have been veiled against their will, then imprisoned, tortured, and publicly hung for daring to allege rape or for having joined peaceful marches for womens’ and human rights.
Atrocities against girls and women in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Darfur are well known, and I will not go into these examples of Muslim-on-Muslim violence. But permit me one story that illustrates how Islamic gender apartheid has increasingly been penetrating the West. It concerns something that happened this year to a woman physician in Great Britain.
Thirty two year-old Dr. Humayra Abedin ’s own family drugged, bound, and gagged her, then forced her into a marriage in Bangladesh. Amazingly, the British police rescued her, (she was held captive for nearly five months), a Bangladeshi court freed her, and, on December 19, 2008, a British judge issued an order telling her parents not "to pester, harass or intimidate" her.
Given that things like this happen every single day all over Europe–not to mention what happens in the Islamic world–I cannot understand how younger feminists do not factor this into their definition of feminism.
I understand: such terrifying realities can be overwhelming, one also wants to escape from this if one can, one wants far more than a room of one’s own, one wants a life of one’s own, joy, some happiness, love, pleasure, foolishness. We lucky few…
Well, are we our sister’s keepers or not? Are we only concerned with how we look and feel, let the wide world be damned? Isn’t a better balance of selfishness and selflessness possible?
I admit it: I’m embarrassed by younger women who define themselves as feminists but who are completely concerned with their own bodies, beauty, financial security and prosperity, their right to lesbian, transgender, and bi-sexual pleasure, and with an obsessive focus on abortion, which I support, and on gay marriage, which I certainly don’t oppose but c’mon: they are stoning women to death in Muslim countries, face-veiling them against their will, trafficking children and women into brothels all over the world. Are we lucky few going to spend our time on earth gazing at our own navels until the knaves come for us too?
On December 10, 2008 an historic bill was passed unanimously in the United States Congress. It is called the William Wilberforce Trafficking in Persons Act, named in honor of the 18th-19th century British parliamentarian who spent 18 years lobbying for a bill against slavery. He finally succeeded. The left-right American coalition behind this bill spent 10 years working for it. It concerns not only sexual slavery and trafficking, but also domestic slavery and, believe it or not, the rights of children not to be kidnapped to serve as child soldiers all around the world.
Will younger feminists in the West work on such legislation in their lifetime? I don’t care who they sleep with, (as long as the other person or persons are not underage), what they wear, or how they look. I care about the work they will do. The books, poems, equations, and symphonies they will write, the acts of generosity they will perform. Will they ultimately be isolationists or will they take up womens’ (and human) rights as a universal cause? Will they stand with Muslim and ex-Muslim feminists and dissidents and against fundamentalist terrorists? Will they argue for the rights of African women not to be raped by their husbands who are increasingly infecting them with AIDS? Will they challenge arranged child marriages, polygamy, forced face veiling, and in short, deal with the other features of gender Apartheid?
Most Western feminists have refrained from "judging" barbarous misogyny lest they be accused of "racism." Well, how about sexism? Are we willing to abandon the most vulnerable children and women on earth in order to retain our politically correct credentials–as so many Second Wave feminists have done?
Phoebe Frangoul, the editor of Pamflet, declares that it is time for Germaine Greer (and I suppose the rest of us) to "step aside. We’re grateful for what you did but it’s time for you to hand over."
Not to worry, Phoebe, time takes care of that very well. So many Second Wave feminists have died or are ill and no longer able to "carry on." So, it’s important that someone mind the store.
POST A COMMENT
This post is so stereotypically "Second Wave leadership" it makes me ache.
It’s always something, isn’t it? When people, be they young, black, gay, poor, lip-stick wearing, conservative, pro-life, pro-family, or men, don’t agree with second wave feminist politics there must be something wrong with them. God forbid they have their own opinion.
I’m not surprised, because the trope of Second Wave leadership tearing down younger women more than building them up, is old news. The ones who do exist are often there by way of buttering the bread of their feminist foremothers, because if they don’t agree with every clause, show their undying respect for every march, they’d be thrown out of the now incredibly well-resourced (and still incredibly white and heterosexual) "sisterhood."
Which gets to feminist studies du jour, global feminisms, which, while noble, often feels like white women going to other countries to prove they aren’t as racist as the women of color in their own backyards make them out to be. Young women are hardly apathetic in the face of the global oppressed, and the evidence is too pervasive to catalogue here.
But even more relevant, aren’t there enough women and men to work for in this country? I work on many issues, including anti-semitism, environmental justice, and racism. Does Chesler work on getting two million black and latino men out of prison and back to the women and children who need them? Because that’s one of the “feminisms” I see younger women doing.
As a daughter of feminism I am embarrassed by feminist spokespeople like Chesler, who, among other things waited until the final moments to endorse Obama (and here I am thinking of Kim Gandy at NOW), and think it is "feminist" to insult and infantilize young women and their efforts. It’s tragic, really. To reject your own offspring.
.
I agree that new wave feminism is stupid as old wave feminism. And the personal isn’t political after all.
I think the article you’re talking about must be part of that little media controversy which has been dragging on for YEARS in the English opinion pages and has no reference to anything outside the English opinion pages. Really, about 1 year at least! Middle aged feminists have been constantly nagging younger women for binge drinking or being models or being attractive to men, this article is just responding to those articles which didn’t mention oppressed 3rd world women at all. I mean, you started it!
Actually Germaine Greer wrote an article in the times a few weeks ago about high-heels. She couldn’t decide if they were feminist or anti-feminist but she did definitely think they were either 1 or the other.
PS! Will model unions include male models? because you know they’re paid 100X less than girls. Sexist!
The whole problem is women letting men get away with telling them what to do with their bodies. Wear this, cover that, wtf? If I want to wear a tent, I will and you sod off. If I want to go out with my tits hanging, ditto and don’t you forget my eyes are UP HERE! Sheesh.
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
Brava, sister! I can do nothing more than endorse each & every word. Thank you.
If you care more about what someone thinks or doesn’t think of your high heels than you do about the quality of your work and whether or not someone will appreciate that for what it is, then perhaps you’re not an asset to the American workplace – although apparently neither are your current boss and coworkers.
But then again, these sorts of judgments apply to a good 60+% of the American workforce, so it’s all good I suppose.
It’s amazing to me the degree to which people will be complacent to let others fight mental revolutions and incremental "battles" of cultural evolution for them. I guess that’s why my parents were so content to be self-employed for the majority of their lives. I understand that the American workplace can be a great sanctuary for the mindless herd mentality, but I never understood why that had to be so either.
It’s good that in the industries that had actually been driving the American and global economies recently, this sort of bullshit is not the case. I guess it takes a group of creative people working in industries like high-tech or starting their own businesses, etc. to actually make some needed changes "cool" that others will make use of and build upon later - hopefully even in their own lifetimes. Although I wouldn’t count on it!
Still waiting for some examples of liberal feminists who think it’s more important to be "PC" than it is to stand up for women. I hear conservatives toss that one around a lot, and I’d like you to back up your assertion rather than just go on about one poorly done article in the Times.
I very much appreciate the discussion here. Thank you Laura P for your kind remarks and thank you Ms and ZBird for your more critical comments.
I agree: If "extreme suffering" is used to facilitate guilt and passivity–I certainly oppose that. But, the Times of London article did not talk about bringing lawsuits which allege rape, sexual harassment, battering, or sex discrimination, all of which are very much alive in both England and America. The article, (and others like it), focused on personal appearance issues almost in lieu of taking a stance against gender-based violence in the West.
Forming a union for models, which the article mentions is as important as was forming unions for stewardesses and secretaries in my time; however, viewing the choice of becoming a model (or a "sex worker") as a necessarily "feminist" choice is ridiculous. Why? Because most women are making a forced, not a free choice. Few women are offered the "choice" of becoming a well-paid football or basketball player (beauty contest winners earn far less); or the "choice" of becoming the president of a small country or the CEO of a large corporation versus becoming a model with an exceedingly short shelf-life or a "sex worker" with an even shorter life expectancy.
I fear that something has gone terribly wrong for younger women in terms of an increased and profound anxiety about appearance and beauty–something that I first wrote about in 1976 in a chapter titled "I’d Rather be Dead than Ugly: The Psycho-economics of Female Beauty," contained in my book, "Women, Money, and Power which I co-wrote with Judge Emily Jane Goodman.
But, I must still ask: Are we our sister’s keepers or not? Isn’t there a way of using our relative privilege and power to help women in "extreme" danger? Must we choose between one or the other? As the great Rabbi Hillel once asked, (paraphrased here): "If I am not for myself what am I? If I am only for myself, what am I? And, if not now, when?"
Phyllis Chesler
I agree with MS but I don’t think her argument goes far enough, in that the author’s flaw doesn’t just discourage useful feminist work at home but essentially says that any efforts to improve our society are not worthwhile as long as greater suffering exists somewhere else.
–Z
I think this whole article is made up of nothing but strawmen. I would like to see some actual examples of actual feminists ignoring or approving of abuse due to "culture." I read several feminist blogs a day, and they are unanimous of decrying abuse against women from other cultures. In fact, Hirsi Ali is a major feminist icon.
Then, there’s the whole lipstick/caring about the world false dichotomy. Come on, there’s no reason you can’t do both!
Thankyou for standing for all women…to me it has always smacked of racism, allowing non-European women to be brutalized and murdered and shrugging it off as "their culture". It may not be "PC", but we need to say that any culture that marginalizes and oppresses half its population needs to be confronted on its misogyny. It is a human rights issue. Either women are human beings with equal rights and protections (and we need to defend their rights) or not. It seems so simple, yet so many don’t get it.
And, while pointing at other cultures, we need to also take a hard look at our own. Haredi Jews have their own modesty police and would, if given the power, be as restrictive on women as any Islamist. Due to ultra-Orthodox lobbying in Israel (a democratic country that is supposed to protect all citizens equally) it is illegal for women to read Torah or conduct prayer services at the Kotel. The punishment for a woman breaking the rules designed to protect the sensibilities of the Haredim is 7 years in prison.
Women need to stand up for each other in every circumstance. Our silence is complicity…
Shalom!
Wanna post your own comments? Gotta log in first!